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(thaddeus's turn)
"Please tell me this is not God," he said to his computer. Ansel was serious; he did not lol.
The computer didn't answer, but a steady, strangely familiar rasping noise began, coming from no discernable location. Ansel tore his eyes from the enigmatic screen and scanned the room. Nothing.
Oh smirf, he thought, is my hard drive about to die?
The noise became louder. Where had he heard it before? With trembling hands he hit the power button on his computer. "Keep trying," read the screen. Groping behind the monitor, he found the main power chord and yanked it out. The monitor went dead, but the sound continued. Without the distracting hum of the computer, Ansel realized that it was coming from right beneath him.
He twisted and looked down just in time to see the cartoonishly large saw blade stabbing up through the floor complete the circle it had been diligently cutting under his chair.
Black emptiness yawned below him. He fell.
(the truly brilliant Elsemore's turn)
The first thing Ansel thought of was the message that had been flashing on his monitor whenever he started up his computer lately:
"Warning, your anti-virus software is 15 months out of date . . ."
Or was it 18 months? And that was before the hospital. Which would make it . . .
"Beautiful, " said Ansel. "A virus. Bloody hell."
The screen now turned a colour that was at the same time orange and black, like the inside of eyelids on an August afternoon, sprawled on a blanket on Brighton beach. Like his eyelids on those hot days in the sand, the computer screen now seemed to Ansel like a tenuous border between the vast world within and the vast world without. The
computer's speakers squawked, like a seagull, and his balance shifted slightly in the direction of the world behind the screen. The letters that appeared on his screen were nothingness white, as if they'd been imprinted by staring at the sun through a stencil, then to remain floatingly visible even after the eyes are tightly shut.
They said, "Think of your password."
Ansel shook his head. This was good. Definitely not the work of his little sister. Clara knew some basic HTML, but this was way out of her league.
Ansel thought of his password. His password was the name of that pretty nurse on the Fox ward. The computer made that noise that computers make when one clicks on something that one should not. The letters on the screen flashed, "Access Denied." Then the letters dissolved and came back together as one of those inane colon/close-parenthesis smileys, which Ansel detested.
"Please tell me this is not God," he said to his computer. Ansel was serious; he did not lol.
From: lunaboca@..>
Date: Fri Aug 8, 2003 10:11am
Subject: my dangerous and extremely subversive poetic achievements
From: "George W. Bush"
To: lunaboca@...>
Subject: Re: The 10en20 Threat
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 07:27:36 -0400
My fellow Americans,
It has come to my attention that there is a dangerous and shadowy group stalking our nation's bandwidth. This group calls itself 10en20, it is small but growing, and its weapon of choice is Poetry.
Now I've been known to appreciate a good poem now and again,
like Casey at the Bat, say, which is about baseball, and rhymes, and is overall a gosh darn good American poem, except for maybe that part at the end where he strikes out, but I'm going to look into having that changed.
But these 10en20 people don't write that kind of poem. Oh no. They write poems with such titles as The Rumi House. Sounds innocent enough doesn't it? Except notice that it's not Roomy house, as in a house with lots of room to put your feet up when you get home at the end of the day; the kind of place made affordable by my generous tax cuts? No. It's Rumi House. And do you care to guess where this Rumi fella comes from? Well I'll tell you. Afghanistan!
Know what they call a Roomy house in Afghanistan? A cave!
The leader of these 10en20 folks is a woman by the name of Lunaboca. She's a clever woman, this Lunaboca, and when she gets ahold of words they're as deadly as boxcutters! And her arsenal is growing. We have proof that she has used limericks on her own people, and even . . . Sonnets!
Well, I say bring it on!
The clock starts ticking now. Lunaboca has 48 hours to step down.
No wait, I mean now! The clock starts ticking now. If you started it the first time I said that, please rewind it about 3 minutes, unless of course you're a faster reader than me, in which case please rewind it back however long it took you to read between the first time I said it and the second. Ok, all set? I hear it. Tick tock.
Hear that Lunaboca? I wonder what kind name that is . . . Lunaboca?
Yours Truly,
George W. Bush
that march day began like any other. the nasally insistent bbc announcer on his radio urging him into consciousness, the rising of a dull ache from where the i.v. port had been, the busy sounds of the rest of the household readying for their day. he didn't know why he set the alarm; there wasn't anywhere he had to be most days. but it seemed indolent to sleep away his mornings. he pushed out of his bed, padded the few feet to his desk, picked up the small but sturdy lockbox. spun the dial, back, forth four times. inside was a brown leatherbound journal. he lifted it out tenderly. it was a gift from an american friend, one who kept insisting that he write write write as a way to pass the time in the hospital. he'd appreciated the thought, but hadn't bothered much, being too busy retching on the
bad days, and harrassing the nurses on the good ones. when he left the hospital, after nearly four months, he'd filled less than a dozen pages. the american friend upped her diatribe then. "what the hell", she said, "are you doing with all that time? staring in the mirror, thinking 'does my butt look big in these pajamas?'" finally, more to shut her up more than anything, he began to write. first some poems, then a few rants against god, some horny scenarios involving a particulary buxom young nurse, and a few short stories. at his friend's urging, he'd posted a few on the web, at an open fiction site. this has resulted in some interesting correspondence.
he opened his journal to begin his morning routine. thirty minutes of writing, a cuppa, thirty crappy pills, then thirty more minutes. this morning, however, he didn't make it one. opening to where he had left off last night he was startled to see, in writing he did not recognize, a web address. www.verything.org.
"clara", he thought. clara was his sister, recently 13, surprisingly less pesky than most younger sisters, but not above the occasional prank. it didn't look like her writing, though he supposed she could have disguised it. it angered him to think she could have been in his journal. but wait-- it had been in the safe. and he had written in it just last night. surely he would have noticed?
perplexed, ansel turned on his computer, waited for the whirring to subside, and typed in the web address.
a black screen appeared, then slowly faded into a glowing
irridiscence. letters appeared, one by one, accompanied by typing sounds.
w e l c o m e a n s e l. w e 'v e b e e n
w a i t i n g..........
what follows (in installments) is an adventure written for my friend a.l.r.: then-16 years old, steinbeck lover, pantagonia wannabe climber, and recent human pincushion. Ansel lives in surrey UK, and was stuck at home after several months in hospital trying on someone else's bone marrow. i think his brain got a little under stimulated on hospital food. he needed some adventures. several from my web writing group chimed in. enjoy, and feel free to continue. ansel just turned 18 and is looking at another bone marrow transplant this year.
between you and me and the wall between us is the angry shiny sea, and some cat keening a love song, and everywhere scattered little broken things. between what we know and what we understand is tomorrow, and tomorrow seems a long way off, and also there are the things we should have remembered, if only we'd done the homework. not to mention things we are better off forgetting. between us and tomorrow is a good night's sleep, so we are picking up those broken things, and building them a mossy nest. even if they can't get fixed they can at least rest a little, and god knows we could all use a rest.
the mc script from our submission to last year's grange talent show. some of the puns are stolen. probably most. nothing new under the sun....
WELCOME SOLE BROTHERS AND SOLE SISTERS
AND ALL YOU BUBBLY URCHINS AND LITTLE SNAPPERS--
WELCOME TO TONIGHT'S EXCLUSIVE PERFORMANCE BY THOSE ARTISTS OF THE OCEAN, THOSE WATERY WEAVERS OF WONDER, THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE FINTASTIC
CIRQUE DU FILET!
Oh-- I see we have some groupers herring the audience tonight-- you folks are packed in like sardines--
But even if you are new to us, you are sure to love tonight's scaled down version of our fishtastic performance featuring freshwater and saltwater friends from near and far-- everyone a star fish-- These creatures are amazing. And they don't do it for the money, folks-- not even for the adoration. They just do it for the halibut.
I'm Buffy the Puffer, your Ringfistress of Anemonies, standing in for Dolly Varden, who's guesthosting on the Whale of Fortune.
It's been a long haul down the pike to get here. The Octobus broke down so we had to squeeze in the Barracuda. I took the bus in to the Shell Station and the guy tells me I blew a seal. I told him to fix the damn thing and leave my private life out of it. But this shrimp, he didn't know when to shut up. He started in on the mermaid, made some remarks about her tail and I just blew up. I landed him with a left hook and he eeled over. By the time I was finished with him he could've used a sturgeon.
Speaking of which, we bring our own topnotch sturgeon to every show, every since the swordfish got tanked that one night-- he's going to help me out with the set changes and the tunas-- he's a fun guy, a bit of a clown fish, and when I met him, I knew "That's a Moray". Let's give a watery welcome to SAM THE STURGEON!
(It Haddock be You)
Sam, I understand Mary Mackeral's still a little shook up by her run in with that cod at the Shell Station. Feeling a little crabby. Maybe you could help her get started on her act.
Ladies and Gentlemen, she's a bit of a stiff, but once you get to know her, you'll see she's a reel swinger-- it's Mary Mackerel the Mermaid, on her Flying Trapeze!
Our next act features a couple of bottom feeders I discovered on Squid row. They were down and out, under a lot of pressure, spending most their time getting tanked. And they smelt. But salmon told me they had talent, so I dropped them a line, told them about the show. They bit. We're glad they did. Let's give a warm welcome to the lovely Angelina Angelfish and her fiercesome GREAT WHITE SHARK!!!
----------------------
Our next lovely lady really knows how to reel em in. She's exotic, a little bull-headed, she's deep. She does things you can't even fathom. And she's here all the way from the Atlantic Coast--a real game fish-- it's GIPPY THE CATFISH CONTORTIONIST!
Our next act is sponsored by the Summit Grange Subcommittee on Weight Loads. This final act requires absolute concentration on the part of the performer, so I ask that the audience clam up until it's over. Don't carp, it'll be worth it. Drum roll, please, to welcome
THE MUSSEL MAN!
Well, urchins and groupers, that's our show. It's been reel fun but it's time I clammed up. Join us later at the CAST party or at the next performance of
CIRQUE DU FILET!!!
"Very Bad Poetry", Petras et al
On Time, Death and Eternity
...But ah! when first to breathe man does begin
He then inhales the noxious seeds of sin,
Which every goodly feeling does destroy
And more or less his after life annoy.
---Robert Peter, 1800's
The morning started out like any other.
That was the way the trauma therapist told her to start. Lil was supposed to say it, "The morning started out like any other." Then she was supposed to tell about how it really wasn't, how it didn't end like any other morning. How it changed the way the woods were for her, forever.
She hadn't quite made it that far yet.
The therapist was a thin, quiet man; fragile-looking despite his expensive suits and Rolex. His office was, of course, in the City, and Lil rode the train in each Tuesday, 4 weeks now, at considerable expense of the county's Crime Victim's Reparations Fund. Each week the therapist looked with big sad eyes at the mute Lil, and encouraged her to tell the story. He claimed by telling it, Lil would be released from its power. The nightmares would stop. She'd be able to walk in the woods again. She'd be able to look her grandmother in the eye, without screaming. All she had to do was to start, to say it.
"The morning started out like any other."
The words became a chant in her head. Not the therapist's voice, but her own, in continuous loop as she gathered eggs or worked the garden. And the story, too, came into her head like some overwrought art film, all garish colors, and dizzying angle changes. Such vivid detail! She remembered the basket, scratchy wicker against her hand. The way the light dappled through the trees, as she sashayed to her grandmother's house just as she'd done a hundred times before. On those other mornings, like any other. She remembered the smell of the warm biscuits, and the mourning doves, keening softly. And then the wolf appearing on the path, greasy-friendly, inquiring as to her errand.
She supposed the therapist was right--that those details weren't important. It didn't seem that way now. The recollection of the wicker was sandpaper; the steam of the biscuits nauseating. The mourning doves, a warning. If she memorized these things, she thought, then it could never, ever happen again.
When her car hit the guardrail, just after she closed her eyes to the reverie of late night jazz on the radio, Roberta woke up, really woke up, for the first time all day. It took only a few seconds for the guardrail to rumble and her Pontiac to break through its gumwrapper resistence, rolling down the hill in crazy carnival cartwheels. In that minute infinity, her life did not flash before her eyes, and she did not finally find God. No, Roberta was a pragmatic, and spent her last second on this earth thinking only: "I really should have stopped for a coffee in Eugene."
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